Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [114]
Many of the regular soldiers have handled explosives, and all of them have made up dummy charges with time fuse and inert blasting caps during Phase II. Now they get down to the serious business of tactical demolitions: charge calculation, charge placement, mine warfare, and target analysis. Classes begin with basic nonelectric and electric firing assemblies. The nonelectric assemblies are straightforward time-fuse, fuse-igniter, blasting-cap configurations with emphasis on the precise calculation of time-fuse burn times. The nonelectric firing assemblies have tactical and nontactical applications. The electric firing assemblies are used for administrative and construction demolitions in which the charges are command-detonated electrically through wire firing lead. Later on, they will learn about radio-control devices to initiate explosives and the use of standard military radio-detonation sets. One of the more difficult and math-intensive portions of the engineering sergeant curriculum is charge calculation and placement. There are formulas for just how much explosive will shatter, crack, cut, or penetrate an obstacle or material, and the exact placement of the charge to achieve the desired result. A small amount of explosive, placed just right, can surgically cut a steel I beam or a heavy wooden timber. The candidates learn to use detonation cord, or det cord, to initiate explosive charges, as well as a primary explosive. During the classroom and range work with demolitions and firing assemblies, the emphasis is always on safety. The handling and use of military demolitions is highly procedure driven. It’s safe work if procedures are scrupulously observed.
On the Fort Bragg demolition ranges, the 18 Charlie candidates use a whole range of military explosives, including satchel charges, cutting charges, cratering charges, and shaped charges. They rig and detonate these explosives for tactical and construction—or destruction—applications. The load limit on the Fort Bragg ranges is four hundred pounds, which allows for some very big bangs. From military demolitions, they move on to the murky world of improvised munitions. These range from construction applications, such the mixture of fertilizer and diesel oil for earthmoving applications, to the making of IEDs—improvised explosive devices—for when military explosives are unavailable. Special Forces engineering sergeants have to be able to handle a wide range of modern, state-of-the-art military explosive devices and commercial explosives. Because they often work in primitive Third World situations, they have to know how to handle foreign explosives and what may have been state of the art thirty or forty years ago. Or they must improvise.
Throughout the engineering sergeant training, there’s an emphasis on tactical demolitions—the use of demolitions in combat operations and the ability to teach those skills to others. Often the best way through a locked door in a tactical situation is by using explosives. The 18 Charlie candidates learn to use breaching charges and the various uses of the Special Operations Forces Demolition Kit. They are also introduced to the special-purpose munitions, which are well beyond the scope of this book.
“I particularly liked improvising with explosives,” Daniel Barstow tells me. “You can get very creative. We first learned how you do it if you have the right military explosives or your demolition kit is with you. Then we’d do it if you had to improvise. We learned you could breach a wooden door by snaking det cord back and forth on the door and securing it with duct tape. But that doesn’t work for metal doors. But if you snake det cord across a couple of IV bags [bags of saline used for medical purposes], the hydrostatic shock’ll take down a metal door. These are good things to know.”
A very important part of the course is the section on mines. Land mines have useful defensive applications in many places where Special Forces detachments go, but they are also indiscriminate weapons. During the Cold War and in areas